describing words – iLearn Technology

The Bookshelf Muse: Emotion, Setting, Color/Shape/Texture, Symbolism Thesaurus

April 15, 2011Kelly Tenkely3 Comments3014 views

What it is: The Bookshelf Muse is a must add blog to any writing classroom toolbox. On The Bookshelf Muse, students will find several thesauruses: emotion, setting, color/shape/texture, weather, and symbolism. The emotion thesaurus offers alternatives for showing character emotion through physical action. The Setting Thesaurus offers sensory descriptions that can help paint the picture of a setting. The color/shape/texture thesaurus helps students include sensory information that helps convey images in specific ways. They symbolism thesaurus helps students utilize symbolism to leave a lasting impression on their readers. To use a thesaurus, scroll down and choose an emotion, setting, color/shape/texture, weather, or symbolism topic from the right side bar. Suggestions will appear as a blog post. Each thesaurus is regularly added to, there is something new each week!

How to integrate The Bookshelf Muse thesauruses into the classroom: The Bookshelf Muse thesauruses are a must add to a writer’s toolbox. All writers experience periods of writers block. The Bookshelf Muse thesauruses can help students break through that block. Bookmark the thesaurus on classroom computers for quick access during writing as a writing/publishing center. Students can access the center as needed to help fire up the creative writing process. This blog will have your students thinking carefully about word choice and how different parts of speech color writing.

Before students begin using the emotion or setting thesaurus, visit the blog as a class using an interactive whiteboard. Using the annotation feature, invite students to the board to highlight words based on the parts of speech. This will help students identify vivid verbs, adjectives, and adverbs that add life to writing.

Consider creating a writer’s toolbox for your students using a tool like symbaloo or weblist.me. Add writing tools like rhyming dictionaries, The Bookshelf Muse Thesauruses, writing prompt generators, a Flickr picture dictionary , Color in Motion, Tag Galaxy, Lightning Bug, What if Questions for Stories, The Story Starter Jr., PinBall-bounce ideas around, Poetry Idea Machine and other writing resources. Create another Symbaloo page or weblist.me for web tools that students can use for writing (Little Bird Tales, Kerpoof, Figment, Picture a Story, pic lits, Story Bird, Zooburst, Myths and Legends, Glogster, Graphic Novel Creator, My Story Maker and Picture Book Maker).

Use the Bookshelf Muse thesauruses as a launching point to create a class thesaurus. This can be done for setting, emotion, senses, weather, etc. Make the thesaurus easily accessible by creating it as a blog or wiki.

Tips: The Bookshelf Muse has just started adding to a weather thesaurus, so far the only entry is blizzard but it should get your students thinking about how they can describe weather.

Please leave a comment and share how you are using The Bookshelf Muse Emotion thesauruses in your classroom!

The Adjective Detective

April 16, 2010Kelly TenkelyLeave a Comment4498 views

What it is: The Adjective Detective is a fun way for your students to learn more about adjectives, superlative adjectives, and comparative adjectives. This interactive learning module, game, and quiz comes from the Children’s University of Manchester site (I have written about it before here). Last week I was searching high and low for some good adjective interactives for my students and was pleasantly surprised to rediscover this one. I knew if the activity had fallen off of my radar, chances were that others had forgotten it, too. The Adjective Detecive offers students a in-depth, interactive mini lesson on adjectives, superlative adjectives, and comparative adjectives. After students work their way through the lessons, they can play an adjective game as a detective. They must hunt down adjectives in the sentence by clicking on it with their magnifying glass. Students recieve immediate feedback on their answer. When they are finished playing the game, students can answer multiple choice questions about adjectives in an online quiz.

How to integrate Adjective Detective into the classroom: Use the Adjective Detective mini-lessons to teach your whole class about adjectives. Put the site up on your interactive whiteboard or projector and discuss the different kinds of adjectives with your students. The site could also be used for self guided learning (I am personally a big advocate of this!) as a computer center in the classroom or individually in the lab setting. After students complete the mini lessons, encourage them to play the adjective detective game. In my classroom I want students to enter the spirit of play and have a few detective hats, magnifying glasses, and mini notebooks. Students can play “detective”, hunting down adjectives in sentences. On the interactive whiteboard, the student at the board can find an adjective that the rest of the class writes down as an adjective clue in their notebooks. Then we pass the detective job onto the next student, until all of the adjectives in the game have been discovered. You could alternatively send students to the classroom computers as a grammar center where the students become “detectives” and jot down their adjective clues while they are at the center. The multiple choice quiz lends itself nicely to assessing understanding with clickers (student response systems). The quiz can also be taken individually on the classroom computers. I like learning sites, like this, that allow students to work through learning at their own pace and offer immediate feedback so that students can monitor their own understanding.

Tips: Check out the rest of the Children’s University of Manchester website for other good interative lessons.

Please leave a comment and share how you are using The Adjective Detective in your classroom.

iboard: A Day at the Park

December 29, 2009Kelly Tenkely5 Comments7205 views

What it is: A Day at the Park asks students to position characters at a park and then construct sentences about their placement or movement. Students can construct the statements by using a word bank, or the word bank can be hidden. This is a great activity for students to practice describing words.

How to integrate iboard: A Day at the Park into the classroom: A Day at the Park was created to be used with an interactive whiteboard. To use it with an interactive whiteboard or projector, invite students up to manipulate the characters in the park scene. Then ask other students to describe their positions and movements by constructing sentences below the scene. This would also make an excellent literacy center activity. Send students to the classroom computers in pairs where they can take turns placing characters and describing their positions.

Tips: iboard has a variety of activities for the interactive whiteboard that can be purchased. A Day at the Park is one of their freebie samples.

Leave a comment and share how you are using iboard: A Day at the Park in your classroom.